Today, I had a friend ask me whether protein powders were bad. I have students ask me on a daily basis whether something is bad to eat or not. These are extremely difficult questions to answer, if you're trying to remain scientific. While it's the job of public health nutrition to reduce foods and nutrients to 'bad' or 'good', it's the job of nutritional scientists and dietitians to look at dosage, and the context of a food within an individual's diet - it's wholly unscientific to say whether something is bad for someone.
Not only is it unscientific, I think this is the wrong mindset to get into, regarding food. The focus on "is it unhealthy" fixates individuals on avoiding specific foods (which one could argue isn't the healthiest relationship to have with food). I can give you a list of a million things not to eat, but what would you know about eating? In reality, we should focus on what to eat.
If you're focusing on a diet that gets you at least 25g of fiber per day, 1.3g of Omega 3's, your DRI for potassium (seriously, try this, it's quite difficult), 8 servings of vegetables and fruits (at least), macronutrients in the ranges set by the IoM, significantly close to the DRIs of all the vitamins and minerals (excluding multivitamins/excessively fortified foods), and eating foods naturally rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals, you'd rarely ask if Saturated Fat is bad, if fructose is bad, if processed starches are bad, etc, because you'd never be consuming excessive amounts of them - there wouldn't be room for them while hitting all of the AMDRs/DRIs.
This isn't to say that there's not room in the diet for these foods that public health nutrition usually denotes as bad (i.e. sat fat, added sugars, refined starches, etc) - acceptable limits have been set (1) - but when you focus on what to eat, you naturally displace those foods to begin with. As I've talked about in relation to Saturated Fat on the sage.org, you can show me all the studies you want saying Saturated Fat isn't associated with Heart Disease, but it still doesn't make me want to change the 7-10% recommendation for saturated fats- it's plenty to get the nutrients from those foods that contain saturated fat and enjoy them, without displacing other nutrient dense food sources. When you over-consume any food item, you displace other nutrient dense foods. No one food has all of the essential nutrients you need within it.
Displacement is actually an issue I've thought about more and more as I've gotten into nutrition - people love to cite studies showing vegetarians live longer, have less chronic disease, etc, but to truly show it's a problem inherent to the meat, you'd need a control population consuming a similar diet, macro+micronutrient-wise, that also consumed some meat. Comparing vegetarian diets to the standard american diet and calling them omnivores, in my opinion, speaks more to the way the meat/refined grain -heavy diets of modern americans displace the good stuff.
Focusing on what not to eat also leads to a lot of confusion about what is generally health promoting. One of the exercises I do in class with students is to look at a Rice Krispies box and tell me how they advertise the product as a smart/healthy buy. One of the methods they use is a nutrition snapshot that shows Plain Rice Krispies only has 110 calories per serving, 4g of sugar, 0g of saturated fat, and 7% of the daily value of sodium. If you're a parent who occasionally follows health news, what do you hear? Reduce calories, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium intakes. That means Rice Krispies are healthy right? They've got all the things I 'shouldn't be eating' but that doesn't change the fact that they're refined grains (empty calories) and a multivitamin for breakfast.
I don't want it to come off like I don't want to have questions asked about nutrition- ask away! I love to see individuals interested in bettering their health, and if you read this blog regularly, you know I love to address myths and claims. However, I encourage everyone to, at least once a year, do a 3-day diet record using SuperTracker, and identify the areas where they're generally lower or higher than recommended, and consult with a healthcare professional about changes you can make. Focus on the nutrient you'd like to increase your intake of and how you can eat them.
Let's focus on what to eat, and enjoy 'what not to eat' on occasion :)
1. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/weight-management-calories/calories/empty-calories-amount.html
Not only is it unscientific, I think this is the wrong mindset to get into, regarding food. The focus on "is it unhealthy" fixates individuals on avoiding specific foods (which one could argue isn't the healthiest relationship to have with food). I can give you a list of a million things not to eat, but what would you know about eating? In reality, we should focus on what to eat.
If you're focusing on a diet that gets you at least 25g of fiber per day, 1.3g of Omega 3's, your DRI for potassium (seriously, try this, it's quite difficult), 8 servings of vegetables and fruits (at least), macronutrients in the ranges set by the IoM, significantly close to the DRIs of all the vitamins and minerals (excluding multivitamins/excessively fortified foods), and eating foods naturally rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals, you'd rarely ask if Saturated Fat is bad, if fructose is bad, if processed starches are bad, etc, because you'd never be consuming excessive amounts of them - there wouldn't be room for them while hitting all of the AMDRs/DRIs.This isn't to say that there's not room in the diet for these foods that public health nutrition usually denotes as bad (i.e. sat fat, added sugars, refined starches, etc) - acceptable limits have been set (1) - but when you focus on what to eat, you naturally displace those foods to begin with. As I've talked about in relation to Saturated Fat on the sage.org, you can show me all the studies you want saying Saturated Fat isn't associated with Heart Disease, but it still doesn't make me want to change the 7-10% recommendation for saturated fats- it's plenty to get the nutrients from those foods that contain saturated fat and enjoy them, without displacing other nutrient dense food sources. When you over-consume any food item, you displace other nutrient dense foods. No one food has all of the essential nutrients you need within it.
Displacement is actually an issue I've thought about more and more as I've gotten into nutrition - people love to cite studies showing vegetarians live longer, have less chronic disease, etc, but to truly show it's a problem inherent to the meat, you'd need a control population consuming a similar diet, macro+micronutrient-wise, that also consumed some meat. Comparing vegetarian diets to the standard american diet and calling them omnivores, in my opinion, speaks more to the way the meat/refined grain -heavy diets of modern americans displace the good stuff.
Focusing on what not to eat also leads to a lot of confusion about what is generally health promoting. One of the exercises I do in class with students is to look at a Rice Krispies box and tell me how they advertise the product as a smart/healthy buy. One of the methods they use is a nutrition snapshot that shows Plain Rice Krispies only has 110 calories per serving, 4g of sugar, 0g of saturated fat, and 7% of the daily value of sodium. If you're a parent who occasionally follows health news, what do you hear? Reduce calories, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium intakes. That means Rice Krispies are healthy right? They've got all the things I 'shouldn't be eating' but that doesn't change the fact that they're refined grains (empty calories) and a multivitamin for breakfast.
I don't want it to come off like I don't want to have questions asked about nutrition- ask away! I love to see individuals interested in bettering their health, and if you read this blog regularly, you know I love to address myths and claims. However, I encourage everyone to, at least once a year, do a 3-day diet record using SuperTracker, and identify the areas where they're generally lower or higher than recommended, and consult with a healthcare professional about changes you can make. Focus on the nutrient you'd like to increase your intake of and how you can eat them.
Let's focus on what to eat, and enjoy 'what not to eat' on occasion :)
1. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/weight-management-calories/calories/empty-calories-amount.html
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